State trooper goes to training, gets arrested on DWI

A Minnesota State Trooper who showed up for a morning training session smelling of alcohol was arrested for drunken driving Wednesday.

Trooper Nick Morse, of Two Harbors, has been placed on leave pending the outcome of criminal and internal investigations. Morse drove his squad car to the Minnesota State Patrol district office in Duluth, arriving at 8:10 a.m., when a supervisor there noticed the alcohol odor, according to a Department of Public Safety press release. Officials administered field sobriety tests, and Morse was taken to the St. Louis County jail. A breath test there registered an alcohol concentration of .08, the legal limit in Minnesota, the news release said.

Morse, a state trooper since 2009 who has neither disciplinary actions nor commendations in his file, was then booked into the St. Louis County Jail and issued a citation for 4th degree DUI.

"State troopers are dedicated to taking impaired drivers off the road, which makes this incident even more egregious and unacceptable," said Col. Kevin Daly, chief of the State Patrol, according to the press release. "We don't tolerate impaired driving, regardless of who is behind the wheel."

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